Birthdays
by trekfreak2008
Summary: He opened his mouth and, careful to make it contain an appropriate level of horror, he yelled. AU


_Birthday_, he thought as he sat huddled up on his bed, knees drawn up to his chest to combat both the early morning breeze and the memories. Before him, the window looked out onto a sunrise, the sun staining the sky and struggling to heat the earth beneath it. He stared at it listlessly, eyes blinking slowly in a futile effort to bat away the images clawing at his mind. _It's my birthday_.

The sandy haired youth sighed quietly, this revelation bringing him no joy. Not for the first time, he wondered what everyone else felt on days like this, why they celebrated. He had never understood it, never had any reason to. The reason for his birth was long dead, leaving behind the one person who remembered. The one person who suffered, who unknowingly caused suffering, on this day.

The house remained quiet, the old fashioned structure even creaking slightly as the rest of the world awakened. But this house, he knew, never woke on this day – it was always trapped in the past. A past which, the older he grew, could never be changed, never be seen again, but was gradually recreated.

It wasn't always like this. At the edge of his memories, when he was too young to understand the pained smiles, he remembered happiness. His mind reached out fleetingly, yearning to bury itself in sunshine, to hover behind the young boy who unwrapped his presents with gleeful, ignorant delight. But she was there – the mind let go, and she drifted away, forced smile lingering on the boy's eyes, threatening to spill onto his cheeks. _At least,_ he thought, bittersweet smirk twisting his features, _I never saw it like this_.

A year ago exactly, he might have wished for this knowledge, demanded it as his right – maybe he still did. At least now he understood the reasons behind that stiff expression, the pain hidden by a joy the face never felt. As he looked in the mirror, even, he was reminded.

"You look so much like your father," a man had once remarked as they had passed him by in the street. He had turned back then, lips open to give voice to the questions he had never been allowed to ask, the stranger smiling at him expectantly, eyes shadowed with something he couldn't identify. But a sudden absence had stopped him and, with a small shrug at the man, he had run to catch up with his mother, not looking at her.

He knew not to look her in the eye, not for too long, but he had never known why until, one day a year ago, he had finally demanded answers.

And, in a tidal wave of tears and pain, he had finally got them.

Now he knew, in excruciating detail, the circumstances behind his father's death. His mother had hidden nothing as, guilt and pain ridden, she had finally told the story to the one child she'd never had the nerve to tell. She'd told his older brother, who had been the only one in the room with the presence of mind to comfort her through the story – at least, she'd told him the outline, and neither of them had spoken of it again, even when Jim had begun to grow up and question his lack of real father.

Sam had already been there, his mother had told him between sobs as she finished her tale, he was so young when their father had died, and he had deserved to know.

But, as the new baby had grown into a blond toddler, she had been in too much pain to tell him. Sam, faithful as ever to his grieving mother, had not uttered a word, had tried to negotiate his time between them both. It had only become more difficult as the years had worn on.

He had, despite his mother's conflicted emotions, continued to grow and live. With a cruel twist of fate – nature's last torture ridden joke – he had resembled _him_. He'd inherited everything from him, without even knowing.

Until he'd been shown a photograph of him, taken in the days before Star Fleet, where he had looked into a mirror almost. Those happy, now dead eyes had been his; that smile belonged to him. He was, he knew every time he looked into a mirror since, sharing a body with his dead father.

He had hoped, foolishly, that those looks would stop, but they had continued to plague him, following him everywhere he went. As he aged, became more like his father in appearance and personality, they had changed – a new emotion, longing, had appeared.

With that came a crushing realisation. Everything that his stepfather had told him when his mother was away – all of it – was true. He'd just been too blind to realise it. His mother, he had been told, didn't want Jim, she wanted _him_, his father.

He had begun to resent him, the man who had given him life, for stealing away his mother when he died. He started to hate her for not wanting him, for staring straight through him, into the eyes of someone else. For treating him almost like he should be someone else, someone he could never be.

He blinked again, unfurling the cramped limbs as he stared at the now bright blue sky, not really seeing it as he stretched. Clambering off the bed, he did not even consider going downstairs, knowing who would be there.

His mother, finally having had enough after several year, had left the day before for a work meeting – or so she claimed – she was sorry that she would miss his birthday, but would be back soon...She had left, indecision keeping her momentarily rooted to the spot, to clamber into the waiting taxi, driving off into the horizon.

Closing the door to his wardrobe, he wondered with an uncomfortably too familiar bitterness how her 'meeting' was going. He knew that he was the reason for it – he had just achieved _his_ exact grades in school, he had begun to mature into a young teenage boy. A few years later and his father would have met her, and she would probably leave Jim forever, unable to cope with looking at an exact replica of the man she could no longer love.

His brother, whilst always having loved Jim for who he was, having been too young to properly remember their father, would be devastated, would feel torn between his duty to them both.

His stepfather, Jim knew, had never liked him, took every opportunity to prove it. Physical or verbal abuse – it never mattered, as long as Jim got the message, which he always did. He had no choice.

His mother didn't know – or didn't believe – and he wasn't about to tell her, to force her to choose between her chance at a normal life – or as normal as it could get – and the living reminder of her dead husband. He knew who she would choose, and he wouldn't be able to bear it.

He could foresee what would happen to their family as long as he was there. His stepfather, fiercely devoted to his wife, would take care to punish him even more. The older he got, the more he hurt his mother by reminding her of _him_, the worse the punishments became. His stepfather hated to see her in pain, and Jim was the cause of it.

Better to take away that pain, as he had always been told, than to inflict it on the only people he loved. _After all_, he thought bitterly, _it's wrong to hurt people, isn't it?_

But that's what he was doing, with every breath, with every heart beat, he drove that pain – a pain which should have diminished with time – deeper and deeper.

The now open window blew breeze onto his face, and he did not even care that he did not remember opening it. He knew what to do. It was clear.

He lowered himself out the window slowly, one arm groping for a tree branch which he knew grew near to his bedroom window. He felt the gnarled bark beneath his fingers, and wondered fleetingly what their reaction would be if they knew it was intentional.

_Better they don't_, he decided as he swung himself off the tree and landed with a thump. _Better to let them think it was an accident. _

He was known for them: the accidents of an adrenalin junkie. No one even stopped to consider that the only reason he needed it, that all encompassing adrenalin, was to forget everything else. Let them think that he just went too far, got too careless.

His feet carried him to the old garage door, the splintered and weather beaten wood mocking him. His father, he had been told by his step father, used to park his hover car in there, used to open the door every morning before work and close it before night. The hover car no longer greeted the outside air as the door opened, the space occupied instead by his stepfather's ancient four wheeled car. It was the only thing of _his_ they had thrown away.

The car was an antique, taken from the days when a red sports car was the best trophy a man could have, when the pollution it caused had only just been discovered.

Its engine purred as he turned the key. For once, he was glad the key remained in the ignition – it made his job just that little bit easier.

He allowed the machine to roll onto the dusty ground, small bursts of dirt flickering in the breeze, disturbed by the heavy tires. Reassuringly, the atmosphere remained still. He would be alone for this – his last act.

He had planned it carefully, right to the date. It was his last message, his last word, his last reminder. By dying on his birthday, he would give them a piece of his thoughts, but only if they cared to look. All they would understand would be the recklessness that had grown with years. They would think it was another of his stupid stunts – what better way to celebrate a birthday than to joy-ride in a stolen car?

If, and only if, they looked deeper would they understand. They would finally see his desperation, his helplessness, his sheer _yearning_ to escape the legacy of a Star Ship Captain who had forever plagued him. It was poetic justice, he thought, that he would go now, leave forever, just like his father. He would fulfil the destiny that everyone expected of him, but not in the way they foresaw. He could still choose his own path, could still end all of the suffering before it got too great, and that was _his _choice. Not his father's. If they cared enough about him to think, to scratch beneath the surface of his last decision, they would know.

The wind dragged itself through his blond hair as he revved the engine to life and sprung into the distance. As he gained speed, he imagined he could hear a loud cry of outrage.

Sure enough, a low, growling voice crackled into life over the recently installed, modern intercom. "Get back here you little _shit_! You think that just because your mother's away you can-"

But Jim was barely listening to it, tuning it easily out of his mind as he skidded around another corner, admiring in the wing mirror the plume of dust he created.

His last mark on the world.

"-that _car_," the voice bellowed, incensed that it was receiving no answer, "is an _antique_!"

He cut the voice off, replacing it instead with the loudest, most attitude-filled song he could find, turning the sound up until it began to make the car frame vibrate.

He allowed a smile to creep onto his face at the lyrics. He might as well promote the image of an adrenalin-seeker. It was, after all, the only part of him – and not his father – that they would remember.

He kept the smile firmly in place as he saw a lone figure walking towards him, thumb lazily stuck into the air, signalling for a lift. His brother, having attended an overnight party at a friend's, was on his way back home. In time, if this was normal circumstances, to greet Jim as he woke up from his birthday lie in.

Today, he would bear witness.

Careful not to allow his real emotions to show, Jim leaned out of the window and whooped idiotically at his brother, gesturing needlessly at the car. The blaring music drowned out his brother's response, but Jim already knew it. He'd performed enough to stunts to memorise it.

Settling calmly back into his seat, he allowed the smile to fall off his face, catching sight of a police-bot a moment later, approaching his car.

He refused to be stopped.

Having pushed his foot hard onto the accelerator, he was slightly surprised when a moment later a bike hovered next to him, metallic face peering into his without emotion.

"Citizen, pull over."

He ignored the demand, pretending to show fear and guilt as he swerved away from the police-bot. Everything was being recorded. Even his facial expressions had to be genuine, correct down to the last twitch of a muscle.

Unfazed, the bike continued to follow him, and he only pretended to care as he returned his focus to the dirt road. In front of him, he could see it, the drop that would grant both him and his family with their much needed release.

He pretended to yell in shock, gripping the steering wheel tightly, spinning it frantically in an attempt to avoid the yawning crevice. Inside, he was dispassionate, detached.

He should care, he knew, should feel some self-pity, fear, even shame at throwing away his father's sacrifice so readily. He should feel any of that, anything but the leaping pride as he saw his plan carry through without a hitch, his stomach lurching in approval as he hurled himself from the uncontrollable vehicle.

The hover bike screeched to a stop and Jim Kirk landed with an almighty thud on the gravelly ledge, his legs pulling him over the edge and into a much sought after peace.

He opened his mouth and, careful to make it contain an appropriate level of horror, he yelled.

The hover bike sat there, the rider unable to feel anything as it watched a boy tumble to his death, the loud crash of the car's impact creating a much larger impression on the silent landscape than the boy himself ever had.


End file.
